Other rationality of protagonist; Baron von Munchhausen

The Baron von Munchausen is a romance absolutely imaginary written in 1785 from Rudolf Erich Raspe(1737-1794), German writer, that has took from a German soldier; the tale is the other side of Enlightenment because now is the predominance of irrationality, instead the rationality, the science now isn’t because alone the fantasy is dominant, in fact the author tells: “My father(a student of physic thing, astronomic and geographic and he written much treaties among The influence of sun on the fur of bats…”; this introduction naturally is false because the bats haven’t fur, and second the name of his father, but the amusing lies continue in front of the chimney: “(the chimney that has had the measures an high of 12 meters and it was large 9 meters…”; I think that it wasn’t a chimney a condominium. A passion to travels is press for his parents whole grade of kinship is very comic: “..finally a good day come to our house a parent(cousin of wife of uncle of brother in law of sister of my grandfather)”; for the grade of kinship to this person was very rational and common consanguinity, who have some problem asks to secret service of some country. The fantasy is again the principal motive because after landed in an island a storm has brought the destruction, in spite of tragedy, is very comic: “…and a storm burst. It was a violence extreme, so strong that it torn the enormous threes that fleeted on air; beyond the fantasy I think that this image has suggest a scene of Witchcraft of Oz in 1939, although the movie is translation of a romance written in year 1900 by L. Frank Baum, but may the scene of storm is took from this step. The author evidently wanted amused herself because the description od end of storm is very absurd: “And when the storm was ended, every threes failed on the original position and the roots gone back in the earth, and the cucumbers are born on the threes. A crocodile long 40 meters is very laughable; it is a romance of reaction to Enlightenment, and his rationality, as after at last a century after it is going to be as the Verne, when the rationality of Positivism is very important. But among very much fantasy some cultured step is when Raspe tells that the baron was swallowed of a fish very great, it is the step of Iona when he has swallowed from the wheat that has, for theological explication, the announce of the resurrection of Christ, that before is swallowed of death and after he is born again through the resurrection. But I think that this image has suggested also the steps of Pinocchio, written in 1880 by Italian writer Carlo Collodi(1826-1890), that has took or from the Holy Bible or from the Munchhausen Baron; and the Baron, in this enormous fish, has found a nurse and child. We must laugh of these tales because he has written so that the reader laughs, but we must also think that this lively fantasy is the sign of a reaction to the prevalent rationality. It is individual rationality of Munchhausen; this is other rationality of protagonist.

Alessandro Lusana